


Dreams of Another Life

by edawn1



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Eventual Smut, F/M, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Size Difference
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-05 12:46:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14618892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edawn1/pseuds/edawn1
Summary: Growing up on Jakku, Rey always had dreams of another place and time. She assumed it was a form of escapism, her brain's way of dealing with her lonely life. Now that she is thrown into this alternate reality, she isn't so sure she dreamed it up. Cut off from the force, she tries to cope with her situation as best she can, and she sees an opportunity to know a Ben Solo who was never corrupted by the dark side.Ben Solo tries to keep his head down. After a dramatic past, he settled into a comfortable life at First Order Finance. His entire life he's been haunted by dreams of a mysterious girl, but he never examined the dreams closely enough to assign them any meaning. Until that girl shows up in his life and he is driven by the unstoppable need to know more about her."She wouldn't be able to get over seeing his face like this, unblemished by her lightsaber strike. He also looked somehow younger. This Ben was vulnerable, he hadn't spent his entire life being twisted and manipulated by the dark side. She knew somehow that this wasn'therBen."





	1. Finding

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my new fic! While writing 'The Balance' I keep dreaming up all these situations I want to put Rey and Ben into in a modern setting... so here is my go at a modern AU fic. I can't promise a plot, I can only promise angst, eventual fluff and smut, and hopefully good times along the way.
> 
> The premise of this fic was partly inspired by 'Heaven in Hiding' by tobemadeofglass. That fic is about Kylo Ren coming to a modern universe, though he coexists with the modern Ben Solo version of himself.
> 
> In this fic Rey finds herself waking up in the body of modern Rey, she struggles to take over other Rey's responsibilities and wants to fly under the radar. No one suspects much regarding her odd behavior, except of course Ben.
> 
> I'm going to ask everyone to suspend disbelief that Rey would be able to navigate in a modern world, she has been dreaming about this world since she was a child so she is disoriented at first, but she knows all of the basics like how cars work, how college works, how to live and fend for herself in NYC.
> 
>  
> 
>  

Ben Solo hated Saturdays. They were the most useless day of the week. Saturdays pretended to be restful, re-energizing days but nine times out of ten he got called into the office anyway on some kind of emergency or another. Saturdays were bold faced liars.

Now it was half past eight in the evening and he was finally heading home for the day. At least he had Sunday to look forward to, even soulless businessmen took Sundays to rest.

He decided to make a quick stop for coffee at his favorite spot. The little coffee house that wasn't exactly nearby. Surely he deserved a small indulgence after a grueling week at work.

He requested an Uber on his phone and let the driver take him all the way uptown. He sank into the plush leather seat and shoved his palms into his eyes, rubbing away the exhaustion. Thankfully this driver recognized his need for peace and quiet and didn't attempt to engage him in meaningless chit chat.

His suit was slightly wrinkled as he hadn't had time to have his assistant send it off for dry cleaning and all of his other work appropriate suits were in far worse condition. He hadn't expected to work today. He straightened it anxiously, dying to get home and get out of the confining material.

When they arrived at his destination, he quickly tapped out his payment on his phone as he left the SUV without a word.

Ben lived in an apartment that overlooked Central Park on the Upper West Side, but one of his very few soft spots was for this coffee shop all the way up in Washington Heights so he would often take the trip up here to unwind after a particularly long and tiresome day.

He didn't want to admit to himself that he went so far out of his way on the off chance that he would run into _her_.

The girl that haunted his dreams. His mother's protege that he had only ever even seen in person from afar.

Leia Organa was the head of the Poli Sci department at Columbia, she was widely regarded as one of the most brilliant political minds of the modern age. She was a former senator but recently "retired" in order to take this position at Columbia and shape the young minds that will shape the future. Or that is how she put it, anyway.

Rey was her newest protege. Leia had found her on a trip to London and brought her back to America, sponsoring her enrollment in Columbia. She wasn't just an unusually sharp mind, she was a brilliant mechanic and picked up languages and other knowledge at break neck speeds, a true prodigy. Leia had a tendency to adopt a motley crew of underprivileged rejects from society and treat them like projects, shaping them in her image. The only project that was ever truly a failure, was him.

All of this was very impressive on it's own, but the second Ben had learned of her existence, he was consumed by thoughts of her. She was the girl from his dreams. Not in that cliche way like she was the perfect girl for him, she was literally the girl from his dreams. He recognized her immediately. He had been having this dreams for as long as he could remember. They were strange dreams that barely made sense to him, but he would wake in the mornings with a lingering sense of _her_.

He dreamed of her in a snowy forest, she was a fierce warrior who would strike him down night after night. She sliced his face practically in half and he was still in awe of her.

Sometimes he dreamed of her looking much softer, almost ethereal, and reaching her hand out to him. Their fingers slid together like puzzle pieces and electric energy flowed between them.

It was all highly inappropriate, she was a damn teenager still. As far as he knew she hadn't even had her twentieth birthday. Sure she was technically legal, but nine _teen_ seemed painfully young. He was a thirty year old man. He had never even officially _met_ her. Hell, he hadn't talked to his mother in years, but it was a smaller city than most people thought and Leia and Ben's circles overlapped more than he cared for.

He had, pathetically, asked a subordinate at work to find Rey's address so he knew that she lived in this neighborhood, right near the coffee shop.

So far he had been frequenting this shop for the past six months and hasn't had any success in running into her. Honestly, he felt truly pathetic sitting by the window sipping at his customary black coffee. He was pretty sure his behavior fell into the category of stalking, if he cared to really analyze it. He didn't.

It looked like his luck was about to change. There she was, out on the street.

Something possessed him to walk out to her. Maybe it was that she looked lost, or maybe it was that he couldn't pass up the opportunity to finally speak to her in the flesh. As he exited the coffee shop, steaming cup in hand, he almost barrelled directly into her.

"Ben," she said in a breathy voice that sounded strangely relieved and anxious.

He froze. She looked stunning, even under the harsh lighting of the streetlight at nighttime. How did she even know his name? More importantly, why was she saying it in that soft voice like they were old friends?

"Um, hi... Rey? Right?" Of course he knew her name, but he wanted to at least play it off casually. The fact that she seemed to know his name put him somewhat at ease. Maybe his mother had mentioned him in passing.

She furrowed her eyebrows up at him, her mouth setting into a small frown. She was severely under dressed for the cool early December weather, he noticed. She was just wearing a pair of black leggings, sneakers, and a plain white t-shirt. Goosebumps sprang up in the flesh of her forearms as she crossed them in front of her.

"Ben, what is going on? What have you done to us? I can't feel our connection. I can't feel _anything_." Her eyes darted around warily. "Where are we?"

His eyebrows shot up into his hair line. This was certainly an odd development. Maybe his mother had taken on a mental case. She was looking more agitated and on edge by the second. Something very not normal was going on.

"Rey, calm down, what do you mean?" He reached out with the hand that wasn't holding a coffee cup in an attempt to gently guide her down the street towards a bench. She shrugged him off roughly and glared at him in response.

"You know exactly what I mean, you've done something to me, to us!" She was raising her voice now and drawing stares from passers by.

For a gut wrenching second he thought she might be talking about the dreams, was she having them as well?

"Shh, shh, we will figure this out. Let's start with what you think I've done." He gave up on trying to get her to sit down. He would give anything for some privacy, he hated the feeling of judgemental eyes crawling all over them. She looked especially young and vulnerable tonight, walking around half dressed in this weather. Her face didn't have a stitch of makeup and her skin looked fresh and painfully flawless. He was sure he looked like a total creep, hulking over her small frame.

She looked at him then, really looked at him, her eyes sweeping over his face a few times.

"Your face," she whispered, bringing her fingers up reverently, her eyes fixed on his right cheek. Fingertips brushed over the skin there, catching on some stubble that he hadn't had time to shave off this morning. He was reminded of how over and over in his dreams she would slice open his face with a beam of light. He shivered at her touch. "What happened to your face?"

"Nothing I'm aware of, why, do I have dirt or something on it?" He wanted to bring his hand up to check it but her fingers were still there and he never wanted them to leave.

"Who are you?" She drew her hand away and his skin burned where she had touched.

He wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he said the only thing he knew for sure as fact, "Ben Solo." She blinked at him, nonplussed.

"You cut your hair," her eyes were drinking him in, eyebrows still drawn together in confusion. He didn't bother telling her he hadn't cut his hair since he graduated undergrad and went over to the dark side to study for his MBA. He kept it long enough to cover his ears, but the shorter hair, when styled, was much more professional than his old shoulder-length cut.

"Rey, you don't look well. Do you want me to call my mother for you? Maybe I can take you over to her place." The last thing on earth he wanted to do was call his mother, but he was at a loss for what to do with this girl. She was having some kind of episode, he was sure of it. Maybe his mother knew she was prone to these outbursts when she took her on.

"Leia?" Rey let out a small gasp. "Leia is here?"

"Well I don't know exactly where she is, but we can call her and find out." He looked her over, she was shivering now. She didn't seem to have any kind of purse or pockets on her person. "Where is your cell?"

"My what?" Her nose wrinkled in confusion. Good god, whatever was going on with her was really serious. What kind of almost twenty year old could stand being parted from their phone?

"Your mobile?" She was British, right? Maybe she was still learning. She continued to observe him with that blank, confused look. "Right, never mind. I'll call her on mine." He fished his phone out of his pocket and she looked at it curiously.

Before he dialed, he shrugged out of his suit jacket and offered it to her. She looked up at him with parted lips and he impatiently held it up for her to slip her arms into it. She obeyed and he dropped it onto her shoulders. She looked ridiculous in the large jacket, like a child who had gotten into her father's closet. For some reason he didn't want to examine, he blushed at that thought.

He scrolled through his contacts and brought up his mother's contact entry. He had her listed as 'Leia Organa'. 

As it rang, his stomach turned over in anxious anticipation.

" _Ben? What's wrong? Are you okay?_ " Her raspy and somewhat panicked voice filled his ear and he realized he had hoped she wouldn't answer.

"What? Nothing short of me landing myself on my death bed warrants a call to my own mother?" He snipped at her. Rey watched him intently.

" _Ben, you haven't called in years, forgive me for thinking the worst._ " There was that dry sarcasm he was expecting.

"As it happens, I do have somewhat of a problem on my hands. Your student, Rey, I just ran into her and she is... not well. Something is wrong with her."

Rey narrowed her eyes at him, but didn't interrupt the conversation.

" _Rey is with you? What is wrong with her?_ "

"It might be better if you see for yourself. Are you at home?" He shifted his weight on his feet uncomfortably.

" _Yes, bring her here at once._ "

"Okay, it will take about an hour at this time of day, we will be there soon." He clicked off the call without a goodbye and looked over at Rey.

"Nothing is wrong with me," she bit out. It made her seem even more the petulant child in his oversized jacket.

He ignored that. "My mother lives outside of the city, we will take an Uber back to my place and then I will drive us in my car."

She didn't respond and he got the sinking feeling that she didn't understand what he was saying. Maybe this was the price her genius came at, she was completely bonkers. Every great mind was deeply flawed in some way, there had to be a balance. Couldn't have a bunch of perfect people walking around with brains and looks like hers, that wouldn't do at all.

When the Uber arrived she looked at it very hesitantly before sliding in. He got in after her and they quickly made there way to the parking garage he kept his car in. The attendant retrieved his car quickly, he may have developed somewhat of a reputation for being in possession of a short temper. He opened the passenger door for her.

She looked surprisingly uninterested in his car. He knew from his research on her that she was very much into cars and she barely batted an eyelash at his Aston Martin.

Now they were truly alone behind deeply tinted windows. He pulled out into the street and typed in quick GPS coordinates to his mother's house. She had moved to a new place since their falling out and he wasn't familiar with the way there.

She was quiet now, he could practically feel the confusion radiating off of her in waves.

"Are you okay? Let me know if it gets too warm, you can turn off the seat warmer if you want." He glanced over at her and she had her eyes fixed forward on the dashboard, her fingers played with the edge of his jacket that she was still wearing.

"I'm not okay," she said in a flat voice. "I think I might be alone here."

"You're not alone," he replied instantly in a low voice. He wasn't even sure why he said it or what he meant by it. All he knew was that he wouldn't let her think that. This conversation felt strangely familiar, like they've had it before, despite the fact that he had never met her before tonight.

He extended his upturned right hand across the console. Her tiny hand slid into it carefully and he folded his fingers over it, engulfing her. He hadn't held hands with anyone since maybe middle school, but somehow this felt like the most natural thing in the world, holding her hand.

"Neither are you," she responded after a moment of comfortable silence.

*

They reached his mother's house without incident and he steeled himself for speaking face to face with the woman he had successfully avoided for so long. He gripped the steering wheel and sucked in a deep, calming breath.

Rey looked up at the large house hesitantly. He figured maybe she was just used to cities, not massive suburban monstrosities like the one his mother lived in.

Ben quickly unbuckled himself and walked around the car to open the door for her. When she looked up at him with big, round eyes his chest tightened. Was she even real? Or had he dreamed her up and he was insane one? He held out a hand and she ignored it this time.

"Why are you being nice to me? This isn't like you... you're not nice. Not like this, at least." she trailed off as she climbed out of the car.

"Ah, you've been listening to my mother." He smirked at her, but her expression remained hesitant and nervous. He couldn't help but notice that her eyes flitted towards his cheek where she had touched him before.

He led her to the front door and rang the doorbell. She shifted on her feet at his side. He couldn't help but shiver, the cool air cutting into his dress shirt.

His mother answered the door, she was dressed impeccably as usual, though since she retired from her position in the senate she tended to dress in what her idea of casual was, lots of jumpsuits and more utilitarian clothing. Maybe she wanted the students to think she was down to earth. Glasses were perched delicately on her nose, since when did she need glasses? She looked so much older than he remembered.

"Ben," she whispered and stepped forward, arms out. The only thing he could do was accept the warm hug from the woman who gave birth to him. He patted her on the back gently as she squeezed the life out of him.

When she finally released him, she looked to Rey with wide eyes.

"Rey, what happened? Come in out of the cold, I've made some tea." She ushered them inside and Rey looked around with curious eyes, drinking in the house. He found it so hard to believe that she hadn't yet visited Leia Organa's home yet. His mother loved to host social gatherings, especially for her students and those in her department.

"I'm not entirely sure," Rey murmured as she finally settled onto a stool in the kitchen.

Ben hovered around the entry to the kitchen, hoping that his mother would simply dismiss him and he could flee. To think that he had hoped for months to run into the girl and now that he had, she was entangling him in a mess involving his mother.

"Start at the beginning, Dear." His mother encouraged her and perched on the stool next to her student. He recalled that his mother used to call him 'Dear' what felt like a lifetime ago.

"I woke up... I was in a strange bed. I walked outside and wandered around and then I found... Ben." She seemed to pause before saying his name, like she was trying to stop herself from saying something else. "He brought me here, that is all I know."

His heart skipped a beat when she mentioned a strange bed. If she was drugged or raped he wasn't sure that he would be able to reign in his anger. He worked hard at carefully managing his moods, but this was too much to process. His blood was already boiling at the prospect. His mother's shrewd eyes slid over and locked with his own and something passed between them, they both feared for the girl. Leia looked back to Rey and took her hands gently.

"Rey, did you go out last night? Do you think a man did this to you?" Leia asked in a quiet, soft voice that Ben was sure he had never heard out of the woman before. He was tensed up like a compressed spring, hanging on Rey's words.

"A man? What, no! I thought at first that Ben did this to me-"

"Excuse me?" Leia's eyes went wide and she looked over at Ben this time with an accusatory expression, eyebrows raised and mouth drawn tight.

"I don't think it was him though, I think this was something else..." Rey trailed off, glancing between the mother and son nervously.

"I've never even met her before tonight," Ben hissed at his mother. "She is insane."

Leia's hands tightened protectively over Rey's. Rey looked at him and there was something suspiciously like hurt in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I should go, I think I'm just confused..." Rey tried to get up from the stool and Leia pulled her back gently.

"Nonsense, it is late. You can stay in a guest room tonight and Ben will drive you back to your apartment in the morning. We will get to the bottom of what happened." Leia's reassuring voice was very convincing.

"Shouldn't we take her to the hospital? If she was drugged, she should have a blood test done." Ben chimed in softly.

"I wasn't drugged," Rey insisted, a sharp tone in her voice.

"Are you sure? What is the last thing you remember before waking up?" He raised an eyebrow at her. She opened her mouth to speak and then shut her mouth with a soft clack of her teeth like she changed her mind.

"Maybe Ben is right, Dear, we probably should get you to the hospital." Leia was actually agreeing with him, he managed to mask his shock.

"No! No... I remember going to sleep. I wasn't drugged. Please, I want to stay here." She looked so small and scared, his jacket still dwarfing her within it.

Leia and Ben shared another look and Ben shrugged. Leia sighed and got up from her stool.

"Okay why don't you sit on the couch and finish your tea before bed? I want to talk to my son for a moment."

Rey nodded, taking her mug with her into the living room that they passed on the way in. Leia waited for her footsteps to fade down the hallway before turning on him.

"If you've done something to my student, Ben, I swear to God." Her soft, comforting voice that she used with Rey was gone and replaced by her fierce senator's voice.

"How low do you think I am? I haven't done anything to her. She practically stumbled into my arms in a confused haze and the only thing I could think to do was bring her to you." He dragged a hand down his face, trying to wipe this day off of himself. "This hasn't happened before?"

"No, this is very unusual for Rey. She is normally very confident, I've never seen her confused like this. She seems sure she wasn't drugged, but I can't figure out what else it might be."

"She needs a doctor." Ben's voice is flat. He tries not to think of the numerous breakdowns he had as a child that he had to ride out alone in his room because his mother didn't think taking him to the hospital was a good idea. Bad press, and all that.

Leia was so terrified that her son would end up just as psychotic as his grandfather that she swept everything under the rug. She couldn't bare to face the problem so she buried it. She sent him away to her brother. Then when things didn't work out with Luke and he wanted to forge his own way in the world, she all but disowned him. The terrible Skywalker blood that she was so ashamed of overshadowed _everything_.

"I think we can figure this out on our own, I don't want that stigma to follow her around," Leia said, brushing the idea aside.

"You're unbelievable," he breathed. "Absolutely unbelievable, you haven't changed a bit. I can't believe you would put your own student's life in jeopardy."

"She is more than just a student to me," Leia bristled. "She has quickly become like a daughter to me, and I want her to succeed. She has one of the most brilliant minds I've ever seen, you know as well as I do that brilliance sometimes comes at a price. I'm protecting her. She just needs privacy to work through whatever this is. She just finished up her exams for the semester, maybe this is just all her stress manifesting itself."

Of course Rey is like a daughter to her, her own son didn't live up to her expectations so she is always looking for anyone else to force her maternal affection onto.

"Just like I needed privacy?" Ben snapped, trying and failing to keep his voice down.

"This is different." Leia spoke with calmness and assuredness and it only poured fuel on his rage fire.

"I can't be here," he muttered. "I need to leave." His skin practically itched with the need to get as far away from this woman as quickly possible.

"Please, Ben, stay. Just until morning. You can take her home and make sure she will be alright. I have an early meeting and I won't have time to drive into the city."

He shot daggers at her with his eyes and turned on his heel to find Rey and tell her that he was leaving. Leia let out a deep sigh behind him. She could cancel her meeting for all he cared. If Rey really was like a daughter to her, she should make her the priority.

He stalked into the living room and found Rey curled up on her side on the leather couch, her legs almost completely tucked up inside his jacket with the rest of her body. Her tea was half-finished on the end table. She was snoring softly, lips parted, eyebrows still drawn together.

She took his breath away, bathed in the dim light of the floor lamp.

His shoulders sagged and the fury rapidly drained out of him. She made a little snuffling sound and burrowed deeper into his jacket. He grabbed a nearby throw blanket and draped it over her carefully.

He could sense his mother lurking behind him, watching him tenderly cover her prize student with a blanket.

"I'll stay, just tonight," he whispered.


	2. Waking up

Rey woke up in Leia's living room to Ben hovering near her, gently touching her shoulder with just his fingertips.

"It's time to go, Leia had to go to a meeting so I'm going to drive you home. She gave me your address." He looked anxious, shifting his balance as he pulled away from her.

She wouldn't be able to get over seeing his face like this, unblemished by her lightsaber strike. He also looked somehow younger. This Ben was vulnerable, he hadn't spent his entire life being twisted and manipulated by the dark side. She knew that this wasn't _her_ Ben. The Leia she spoke to last night wasn't her Leia. Was this Ben a murderer too?

Things were different now.

This place was different, yet familiar. She had always had dreams of a place like this, ever since she was a child. Once she discovered her force ability, she thought the dreams might be the force trying to show her something that she couldn't decipher, she got the sense it was trying to prepare her for something.

She thought that yesterday might have been a dream, but she was waking up here, without ever returning to her life back with the Resistance. The last thing she remembered was leaving Crait on the Falcon. Kylo Ren had betrayed her by trying to destroy her and her friends, she was furious with him.

When she looked up at this Ben, she didn't feel fury. It wasn't the same man.

"Okay," she responded and shrugged off the blanket. She was hesitant to say anything to him, like every word out of her mouth would give away her secret. She didn't belong here, she was an oddity, an alien presence. This body she was operating didn't belong to her.

He led her back out to his car and before she knew it they were pulling up to a building she only vaguely recognized from a half remembered dream. She didn't understand how she knew it, just that she had an instinct that this is where she lived, or where her dream Rey had lived at least. She knew it just like she knew the vehicle they were sitting in wasn't called a speeder or a ship, it was called a car.

He looked over at her expectantly.

"Thank you," she said and quickly turned to make her exit. She fumbled with the door handle for a moment before finally escaping from the car and his oppressive presence. The one thing that this Ben and Kylo Ren had in common was the way they watched her, eyes tracking her every movement. That observant gaze was still unsettling even in this universe.

She approached the building slowly, analyzing everything she saw. She reached the door and wrapped her hand around the cool metal of the handle and tugged, only for it to remain solidly in place. She gave it another tug, and then a hesitant push when it still didn't budge. It was locked.

When she awoke yesterday in this strange place, she ran out of there in a panic without grabbing anything. Did she have a key to enter? Her eyes slid over the door, there didn't appear to be a keyhole that she could see.

Before she could make even more of a fool out of herself, she felt a hulking presence appear behind her.

"Do you know your building code?" Ben asked, his hand hovering over a small keypad that she hadn't seen. Her face was burning with embarrassment. He did her the courtesy of not looking impatient with her ineptitude.

"Um... I..." She was fumbling for the right words and she just couldn't find them.

"Niima, that's you right?" Without waiting for an answer, he jammed his thumb into a button that was one of many round buttons in a row above the keypad. When she looked closer she noticed that it said 'Niima/Storm' in sloppy script on a plastic label next to the button.

A loud buzzing sound emanated from the door and Ben pushed forward, opening the door without hesitation. He held it open for her and gestured her inside. Once she heard that buzzing, she understood how inept she truly seemed to him. It was more familiar now, she wouldn't make the same mistake again.

They approached a grouping of large metal doors, _elevators_ , her mind supplied the word. Before Ben had a chance, she leaped forward and pressed the button to summon the lift. He was walking her back to her apartment now, probably afraid she would get lost on her way through the building. She was surprisingly grateful for his familiar presence in this unfamiliar place.

Once they were inside the elevator, it lurched to life and began to take them up through the guts of the building. She had only ever been on First Order elevators, this one was significantly slower. She felt a creeping blush in her cheeks as she remembered the last time she was in an elevator with Ben. She had been so confident in telling him he would turn. This Ben was none the wiser to her recollections. He wasn't there with her, that wasn't him.

"Listen, it isn't really my business, I know I just met you, but you really should go to the hospital today. Or at least see a doctor this week. My mother can be... well, she doesn't get it. She thinks that mental health problems can be swept under the rug. Don't let her convince you not to take your health seriously." Ben was looking forward towards the elevator doors as he spoke. He almost seemed afraid of looking her directly, the way he nervously folded his hands together.

"There is nothing wrong with my mental health," she said confidently, smoothing her hands down her wrinkled shirt. She was still wearing his suit jacket and she found that she didn't want to give it back. He looked at her now, raising a single eyebrow. "I would also appreciate if you didn't mention any of what happened to anyone."

"Right, okay. Sorry I said anything." He turned back to face the door again. His hands were balled up now and his muscles were taught and that looked more like the Kylo Ren she knew. His white dress shirt was wrinkled like he slept in it, but it smoothed and tightened across the muscles in his arms and back as he clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides in an attempt to reign in his annoyance.

She observed him silently, watching several different expressions pass over his face. This Ben was an open book, he didn't even attempt to mask his emotions.

"Here," he spoke as the elevator dinged and let them off, he pulled out his wallet and removed a small white card. "This is my card, that is my personal cell. If you need something you can call me."

She took the card, careful to avoid touching his fingers. It was crisp, white card stock with _'Ben Solo'_ printed in the middle in rigid black lettering. Beneath his name in smaller text it read _'First Order Finance'_ and then there was a series of numbers that she knew was a phone number. She could call this number to speak to him.

In this world where their force connection didn't exist, she could still get find a way to reach out to him.

"Why?" She blurted the word out without thinking.

He smiled a kind of sad, melancholy smile. "I just don't want what happened to me to happen to you."

Before she could ask what exactly happened to him, they had reached her apartment door. Her feet had brought her here of their own accord. The door whipped open to reveal a disheveled and sleepy looking Finn. She felt a rush of relief at the sight of her best friend. Surely he would be the same in any universe, solid and loyal.

"Peanut, what happened? I tried calling you, but your phone was in your room. I was worried sick about you all night, I was going to call the police if you didn't show up this morning." He grabbed her shoulders and his eyes swept over her face and then darted over to Ben, widening.

"I slept at Leia's last night, Ben gave me a ride home," she explained as if the situation made perfect sense.

"Is that her?" Another voice floated into the hall from over Finn's shoulder. Poe Dameron appeared in the doorway. His entire countenance stiffened as he caught sight of Ben.

"Solo." Poe spoke in a flat voice, it was less of a greeting and more of an accusation.

"Dameron." Ben acknowledged him with a slight incline of his head, not as cold as Poe had been but not exactly friendly. "I'm returning your errant undergrad."

Rey's heart clenched in her chest. Kylo Ren had tortured Poe, he had locked him in a chair and tore his mind to shreds. She wondered what the history was between this Poe and Ben and if it was as bad.

"Thanks for the ride," she said politely to Ben and he nodded.

"Yes, of course. Enjoy the rest of your weekend." His lips twitched into a small, hesitant smile and he stalked off back towards the elevators.

Rey looked back to Poe and Finn expectantly, waiting for them to move aside so she could enter. They both stared at her in shock for a moment before retreating back into the small apartment.

"What the hell, Rey? You scared the shit out of us. We came back last night and you were gone, but your phone and your wallet and keys were all here. What happened?" Poe was using that authoritative Poe voice he used with the other pilots when explaining the details of a mission.

After she realized where she was and what was going on, she realized how bizarrely she had behaved last night. She was in the universe from her dreams, except this wasn't a dream. She was really here and she needed to act casual until she could determine how to get back to where she belonged.

"I just ran downstairs to get caf- err... coffee last night and bumped into Ben. He was heading out of the city to Leia's house and invited me along. I didn't want to be rude so I accepted."

As all of the information from this world came flooding back into her brain, she was realizing more and more how erratic and insane her behavior was.

Poe and Finn looked at each other and then back at her.

"So let me get this straight," Finn was speaking slowly, "you went all the way to Leia's house without your phone, or wallet, or keys... apparently without a jacket," he eyed Ben's suit jacket that she was still wearing. "Unless you are in some kind of experimental oversized menswear phase I wasn't aware of. This is really weird Rey, even for you."

She narrowed her eyes at his last comment.

"Why would he even want to go to Leia's house? They haven't spoken in almost a decade. Suddenly he is heading there for a chat?" Poe scratched at the stubble on his cheek idly, looking as if he was trying to reason out the puzzle in his head.

Rey shrugged innocently. "I don't know, I didn't ask. It wasn't any of my business." She hated lying to them, but she couldn't exactly say she was the reason he was there.

"He is bad news, Rey. You should really stay away from him," Finn piped in and Poe nodded solemnly in agreement.

"I knew him back before everything went down, he has always been a bit off, kind of a loose canon," Poe explained. "You should really steer clear."

She was happy the focus of the conversation was off of her and her lies, but she felt a strange swelling of emotion in her chest. She was defensive of Ben. She wanted to protect him from their words.

"He seemed perfectly nice to me," she bit out.

"Right," Poe spoke in that flat voice again. "I have to get to some finals that need grading. I just came over so Finn wouldn't be waiting for you alone." Poe gathered up his things and shrugged on a tweed jacket over a wrinkled and slightly stained oxford. He was a TA on all of the classes that Leia taught so he would have a decent amount of grading to do before he could call the semester finished.

"Thank you for waiting with him." Rey gave him a small smile, trying to keep her guilt out of it.

"Anytime, kid," he finally smiled back and wrapped her in a tight hug. Poe was a hugger, she remembered. "Just don't run off again without leaving a note, you know how he needs you. The guy wouldn't even be able to tie his shoes without you."

She smothered a laugh in Poe's shoulder as Finn made an indignant noise behind her.

*

Over the next few days Rey learned that Rey Niima had a job, she worked in the library at Columbia, which was also the school that she attended. She had been discovered by Leia after her car broke down on a trip to London and it was brought into the shop Rey worked at. She fixed it up and Leia was so impressed with her that she recruited her to come back to New York and enroll in Columbia under the scholarship she offered.

Finn was in the same program as her, he was also discovered by Leia through the scholarship program, though he used to work as a janitor for First Order Finance in high school. His time there made him rethink his dream of working in finance. He actually applied for the scholarship at Poe's urging after Finn had bumped into him leaving work one day. Poe was , of course, leading a protest outside of the First Order's building.

Finn and Rey bonded over their shared history of being raised in foster care. She grew up in London while he had always lived here in New York, but foster kids always stuck together. They became best friends and roommates after meeting in their first semester last year.

Luckily the spring semester had just ended, it was almost Christmas time and she could focus on figuring out her job at the library and trying to put together the pieces of Rey Niima's life.

She brought old notebooks to work with her and taught herself the materials that she had learned so far at Columbia. She had no idea how long she would be stuck in this life, or was it all a really long and messed up dream? She wanted to be prepared either way.

The card that Ben gave her was tucked safely away in her bedside drawer. Every time she opened the drawer it seemed to stare up at her accusingly.

Of every weird parallel version of someone she met in this universe, the one she wanted to spend time with most was Ben. She wanted to find out everything about him, see what Ben Solo would have turned out like if he hadn't been corrupted and abused by Snoke. The idea of him was also the most terrifying, she was afraid that he was the one who was most likely to see through her facade, despite the fact that he didn't even know Rey in this universe. Rey Niima was a stranger to him.

A week went by and she resisted the urge to call him.

Rey had been slowly discovering texting, it was impossible not to learn the ropes when Finn texted her nearly twenty four hours a day about every stray thought that passed through his mind.

Ben had mentioned the number on the card was his personal cell. She could send him a text, that was innocuous enough. If he didn't want to speak with her, he could easily ignore it.

She settled down into her twin sized bed and toed off her sneakers so they dropped onto the floor with two dull thuds. The library was dead silent today as most students had gone home for winter break, but she had to pull a double shift anyway due to a lot of the other student employees also being gone. Compared to scavenging back on Jakku, stocking books for twelve hours was a piece of cake. This body just got sore way too easily.

It was late now, light from the street outside the apartment flowed into her room and spread a dim glow over everything. She pulled Ben's card out of the drawer and settled it on her belly as she pulled up a texting app on her phone to key in his number. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

> _I still have your jacket._

After she hit 'send', she wished she could take it back. She sounded like a moron, of course she still had his jacket. She could have at least asked if he wanted it back, now it just sounded like she was taunting him. She didn't even say who she was, what if he gave out tons of jackets to wayward women who wandered outside in December wearing only t-shirts?

She looked over at the suit jacket that had been hanging loosely on a wire hangar on the back of her door for a week. Shamefully enough, she always enjoyed catching a small whiff of his scent whenever she opened the door. It was different than Kylo Ren, more clean and polished, but the underlying musky scent was still the same. Now the smell that clung to the suit jacket had faded and was nearly gone.

Her phone buzzed only a moment later and she lifted it up hesitantly.

> **You do.**

She rolled her eyes.

> _Would you like it back?_
> 
> **Yes. Meet me at the coffee shop by your apt tomorrow?**
> 
> _Kay. Does 10 work? I have the late shift tomorrow._
> 
> **10 works.**

****

She felt something that was scarily close to excitement at the thought of seeing him tomorrow. Why was she playing with fire? In her own universe, Kylo could see through her, he knew more about her than anyone else. It felt dangerous to seek out Ben in this universe, like he would take one more look at her and just _know_ she didn't belong here. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments give me life.
> 
> Tumblr: [edawn](http://edawn.tumblr.com)


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